UPDATE – see new graph of global ∆T for the past year below. There has been a global drop in temperature of 0.63 degrees Centigrade in the past 12 months.
Of course we already have had a heads up from all the wire reports around the world talking about the significant winter weather events that have occurred worldwide in the last month, but until now, there hasn’t been a measure of how the planet was doing for the winter of 2007/2008.
Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa just posted the latest MSU (Microwave Sounder Unit) data.
January posted a -.08°C near global anomaly between -70S and 82.5N latitude (the viewshed of the satellite sounder). That makes it the coldest month since January 2000, and the 2nd coldest January for the planet in 15 years. Both northern and southern hemispheres posted negative anomalies of -.120°C and -.038°C respectively, happening for the first time since January 2000.
The United States posted a -.557°C anomaly for January 2008 and a -0.196°C anomaly for December 2007.
Here is the raw anomaly data for January 2008
| Year | Month | -70.0/ 82.5 | -20.0/ 20.0 | 20.0/ 82.5 | -70.0/ -20.0 | 60.0/ 82.5 | -70.0/ -60.0 | CONUS | 0.0/ 82.5 | -70.0/ 0.0 |
| 2008 | 1 | -0.080 | -0.188 | -0.063 | 0.025 | 0.288 | -0.833 | -0.557 | -0.120 | -0.038 |
Which can be viewed in its entirety here (.txt data, RSS Data Version 3.1)
Here is my plot of the raw, unedited Global anomaly data (-70S to 82.5N) supplied by RSS per month. Note that the anomaly trend between late 2007 and early 2008 is quite steep and that the period leading up to 2008 is relatively flat.
click for a larger image Note: RSS Data Version 3.1
UPDATE:
I decided to plot a magnified graph to show the global change in temperature over the last year from January 2007 to January 2008, the ∆T of -0.629°C is quite significant for a 12 month period, rivaled in the last 10 years only by the 1998 El Nino warming peak.
Click for a larger image Note: RSS Data Version 3.1
Probable cause– [Una] Niña muy grande. It looks like we may have a PDO shift as well. But as some say, trying to correlate such things is a “fools errand”. But, judge for yourself.
click for a larger image
We live in interesting times.
(h/t MattN)
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Hi,
Don’t get me wrong but I like warm weather. If we go into a Dalton type minimum we could see a little ice age. Our society and the world is not prepared for such an event. For 20 years we have been told to prepare for the Great Warming and if we instead go into a little ice age well, then its like going to a fire and finding a flood.
Of course the big emphasis Mr. Watts has placed in his report is on the recent 0.629 C drop since Jan 2007. However looking at the same plot for the past 350 months back to 1979 shows three other temperature drops that were even larger:
1) month 50 to month 70 with a temperature drop of 0.75C
2) month 106(?) to month 120(?) with another temperature drop of 0.75C
3) month 150 to month 162(?) with a 0.65C temperature drop
The point is over this period there have been larger temperature drops than the most recent one (0.629C) being emphasized and the fact is the overall temperature plot is still ascending. Placing a trendline along the minimums from month 70 to month 162 to the present (which by the fits the trendline perfectly) shows an increase of 0.18C/decade that has not been broken.
REPLY: All true, except the “big emphasis” part, that came second and is not the headline. But is what is also true is that since 1977, the PDO has been in a warm phase, so of course you’d expect a positive trend, but there are indications that it is shifting to cool phase. If that PDO shift holds, we may very well see a reversal.
You said : “One month of exceptionally cool temperatures does not say anything at all about climate change.”
But isn’t that what these scientists are doing, how long have we been monitoring temperatures and how many supposed billions years old is the planet?
Hi,
Anthony, latest PDO number is -1.58, the coolest since 2000 -2.21, then 1991-1.65 (Pinatubo) and then 1972 -2.01
ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/ersst/pdo/pdo.1854.latest.ts
erik puura: Anthony can correct me where I’m wrong but the warmth in Western Europe is expected with PDO negative and AMO positive. I believe D’Aleo and others had papers on this a month or so ago.
Tsonis had a paper in 2007 describing chaotic synchronies between the major oscillations (via teleconnections) that might help as well.
Your luck will very much change when the AMO goes negative in a decade or so and PDO is still negative.
Hi,
Western US snow pack numbers
http://www.accuweather.com/news-blogs.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&blog=clark&date=2008-02-04_22:32&month=2
“One month of exceptionally cool temperatures does not say anything at all about climate change.”
I think it is only fair that January 2008 get some press after all the attention December 2006 got. Example here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/09/national/main2342950.shtml
Additional, erik puura, from what I hear the whole “gulf stream” theory is a myth:
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/51963?fulltext=true&print=yes#52128
But I don’t claim to know for sure, of course!
Somebody really needs to come and spend a little time in Ghana. Normally I’m not disturbed by the heat at this time of the year, but this year I am. Of course, I haven’t looked at any temperature data to see if it actually *is* hotter than usual, or if it’s just feels like it.
[…] http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/rss-satellite-data-for-jan08-2nd-coldest-january-for… […]
Something else for poor Tamino to blow his top over.
REPLY: Tamino gets upset if the wind changes direction and somebody points it out in a graph. He also deletes a lot of comments like RC does, according to people that have related that to me. He deleted a comment I posted citing a solar paper for example.
He recently made a big row about the PDO correlation that Joe D’Aleo wrote up trying to use white noise as a demonstration of correlation (or lack of) but it’s like saying you can see pictures in the clouds. The point is, the kind of running average smoothing that has been done by Joe (11 year) is done by others (some passing peer review) as well, and nobody makes (except Tamino) a stink about it. I don’t have much respect for the guy because he hides behind a pseudonym like “Lagomorph Boy” does. I don’t get that. If you are a scientist, act like one instead of this hiding behind rocks and taking potshots.
Here’s a paper on PDO and Tree rings from Brazil, citing correlation, they use a 10 year running average.
A STUDY OF SOLAR-ENSO CORRELATION WITH SOUTHERN BRAZIL TREE RING INDEX
N. R. Rigozo, D. J. R. Nordemann, L. E. A. Vieira and E. Echer
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais
They claim a 76% correlation of the variance in tree ring index was explained by solar activity and ENSO.
And you continue to impress me, Evan. Most self-described Liberals I know buy into the static view of the economy hook, line & sinker. As you have so astutely noted in several recent posts, one of the primary solutions to many of mankind’s problems is the rapid accumulation of wealth by as many people as possible. Assuming, of course, that they then have the wisdom to use that wealth in a responsible way, as opposed to, say, lottery tickets, heh.
Oops, sorry, posted that on the wrong thread.
Help!
I am new at this (blog stuff) and don’t know where to start. I am trying to make sense of the Global Warming – CO2 controversy. I have seen graphs of transmission/absorption of the atmosphere and the combination of water vapor and CO2 absorption seems to be about 100% (Wikipedia Global Warming article, for instance). If absorption of infra-red quanta in the CO2 “window” (absorption band) is about 100% already, how does adding more CO2 have any warming effect at all? Am I missing something or am I simply totally ignorant and naive?
I would appreciate any help I can get.
John Danielson
Erikpurra:
I will tell you the exact same thing I tell the others: Look beyond your back yard. See the big picture.
European ski resorts had the earliest opening and the most snow in decades. Brutal, and I mean BRUTAL cold in Siberia and Canada. Coldest winter in 100 years in China. Snow fell last month in Israel, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Freakin’ Arabia! Oh, and it snowed, again, last month in South America (middle of summer there).
Big. Picture.
Very nice. It shows globe can cool in a month, without reducing CO2 production.
That’s strange. NY’s January was balmy, even…
We’re doomed! The ice age is coming. The facts are in, the time for discussion is over!
Posters over at dotearth are alredy citing this
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandler s/index.cfm?ID=6557&method=full
paper as proof that the current situation was predicted via GCM.
I didn’t read the paper that way; to me what it looked like was a shakedown cruise of a new GC model and they were tweaking data inputs to see if they could get it to hindcast better than their control. I’ll leave it to you folks who are brighter than me to decide if I read this right, but this doesn’t seem significant to me.
REPLY: the link doesn’t work that you provided
John Danielson, apparently becuase of complex atmospheric physics, which I don’t pretend to understand, the bands never quite reach saturation. At least, that’s what I heard. At any rate, most of the predicted increase in temperatures doesn’t come from the CO2 itself, but from feedbacks. As an example, if it warms up a little, there will be more evaporation, and thus more water vapor, which, as a greenhouse gas, alters the earth’s emmissivity and thus increases the temperature more. On the other hand, more water vapor probably also means more clouds, which alter the earth’s albedo, lessening warming, and its emmisivity, magnifying it. To my knowledge, no one has given a precise explanation of all the feedbacks that could or do exist and how they hypothetically could/do add up. My intuition (and I confess, little else) lead me to suspect the mostly cancel out, but presently the mainstream, “Consensus” veiw point is that they combine to a highly postive number. No one seems to have a engineering quality derivation of the response of the climate to increased CO2. Most explanations require handwaving, speculation, appeals to models etc. And without reliable proxies of past temperatures to test the estimated responses, and without precise knowledge of the earth’s past and present radiative energy budget, there’s still a lot of wiggle room.
Try this time
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=6557&method=full
There was a space between r and s (making it “objecthandler_s”) that looks to be an artifact of how the copy/paste works. hopefully this works?
REPLY: Thanks for fixing that. It’s the CYA forecast model for the Hadley Centre, nothing new. Hadley blew 2007, and adjusted mid year. They missed the emerging La Nina (but originally forecasted a record year based on El Nino and “anthropogenic” factors) Originally they forecasted 2007 to be the warmest year on record, it turned out fifth with a hurricane season quietest since 1977 and 3rd quiet since 1958.
Hadley is even more out of touch with the surface record problems than GISS is.
Hello Timetochooseagain,
Very well said!
May I suggest that you’ve concisely and best summarized the take-home lesson of these very informative posts/threads of the last few days. Anyone with certainty at this point in time is jumping the gun, as far as this hombre can see at least.
I have sympathy for Policy-Makers.
Jd
“Anyone with certainty at this point in time is jumping the gun”
JD thats the first time I’ve seen you admit to uncertainty related to anthropgenic forcings. I’ll expect backup next time I write a letter to the editor.
🙂
That’s strange. NY’s January was balmy, even…
I’ll confirm that. I kept hearing about snow in odd places, but I think the’s been more snow in Saudi Arabia than in The City.
timetochooseagain: Good concatenation. One must consider that conditions have varied considerably (most of the time it’s a LOT cooler thx to Axial and orbital eccentricity), yet temps never spun out of control. Not a lot of people talk homeostasis. Lot of homeophobia goin’ on out there, I think!
“I have sympathy for Policy-Makers.”
Yes, it’s the amateurs who must decide. they are the jurors. The scientists are, in the end, merely the expert witnesses. I do wish they would realize that and stop talking down to us.
I study history. But I don’t go calling people who don’t know the subject idiots. I try to teach a piece of it to them and steer them where they can learn more if they choose. Too many genuinely talented scientists have a tendency to treat the interested amateur like something they scape off their shoes.